


Even After Death

by StarDark



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, space ace pilot boyfriends Bodhi and Luke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9630614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarDark/pseuds/StarDark
Summary: After the Battle of Scarif, Bodhi, Chirrut, and Baze are all that's left of Rogue One. Bodhi does his best to cope. He does not succeed very well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing this on my phone at 2am last night when I couldn't sleep, so please excuse any mistakes. Also this is only the third fic I have ever written, and I'm not particularly great at writing. sorry about that.  
> Feedback is greatly appreciated!
> 
> also, they're probably terribly OOC, sorry

 

_You taught me the courage of stars before you left_

_How light carries on endlessly, even after death_

_\- Saturn,_ by Sleeping At Last

* * *

 

It has been weeks since the Battle of Scarif. The Death Star has been destroyed and the Rebel base on Yavin IV evacuated. Bodhi is still struggling to accept what happened.

He had woken after days in a bacta tank to find his wounds mostly healed. Now, it was the mental scars that persisted. He manages to block the memories from his mind as best he can, spending his days repairing the Rogue One shuttle and doing his best to pretend that everyone is safe, that he's just prepping the ship for another mission, rather than cleaning up the battle scars, repairing the circuitry that is just as damaged as he is. He manages to pretend well enough to function, except for when the nightmares come.

Every single night, his mind plays back those last few moments on Scarif.

_He hears the clatter in the cargo hold, turns just enough to see the grenade before it explodes. By some miracle, he survives, the grenade leaving him with burns and a debilitating headache. But worse than the burns and the concussion - more immediately threatening - is the shrapnel that has gouged his cheek and burried itself in his side. The pain feels distant -adrenaline, he thinks._

_Somehow, he manages to drag himself into the pilot's chair, hoping against hope that the damaged ship's controls still work enough. They do, barely. Flying low, Bodhi unsteadily coaxes the ship up and over the short distance to where Chirrut and Baze are huddled together in the sand, landing as close as he dares. Luckily, Base notices the ship immediately, wasting no time as he scoops an injured Chirrut into his arms and runs onto the shuttle._

_Bodhi is briefly distracted by the Death Star as it fires, dread and fear coiling together in his stomach. The controls are jerky under his unsteady hands, but he manages to shakily raise the ship, flying towards the tower in the hopes that he might find Cassian, Jyn, and Kay-tu before it's too late._

_He already knows it's too late. Even if he could find them, there's not enough time for him to land the ship, get them on board, and escape before the shock wave from the Death Star's strike hits them. Briefly, he catches a glimpse of two figures slumped together on the beach before he is forced to pull up and away from the shock wave, forced to leave Scarif behind, forced to escape with himself, Chirrut, and Baze the only Rogue One survivors._

_He manages to get them out of the atmosphere and the hyperspace coordinates set before he passes out._

And wakes up, shaking and with tears stinging in his eyes.

Even worse are the nights where the nightmare changes, twists itself from truth to fiction, where he manages to save Jyn and Cassian and Kay-tu, only to wake and realize that didn't happen, to remember that they never made it off Scarif, that he had to leave them behind.

Within a few weeks, he has stopped sleeping, forcing himself to stay awake in order to avoid the memories, until he collapses from exhaustion. Unfortunately, the exhaustion gets the better of him in the middle of the hangar, late one evening.

 

Luke Skywalker, back from his first recon mission since blowing up the Death Star is making adjustments to his x-wing when a pilot stumbles past, catching himself briefly on the side of an Imperial ship before collapsing on the ground. Luke doesn't recognize the pilot, but reaches for his comlink immediately, calling for medical assistance. The medics arrive quickly, whisking the pilot off to the infirmary before Luke can even think to ask them for the pilot's name.

The next day, Luke finds himself in the infirmary, asking about the pilot. "Bodhi will be fine," the doctor says quietly. "He's just exhausted. We have him sedated for now to make sure he rests."

Luke recognizes the name immediately. "Bodhi Rook? The pilot of the Rogue One mission?"

The doctor looks at him grimly and sighs. "Bodhi Rook, yes. One of the only three to survive the mission to Scarif, a fact he still seems to struggle to accept."

Luke is familiar with the feeling - Wedge had been the only other member of Red Squadron to survive the attack on the Death Star. However, Luke had been managing to keep himself busy, and he counted himself extremely lucky that he had very few nightmares. He still struggled to accept the loss of so many good pilots. He reminds himself that they died as they would have wanted - with their ships, fighting for freedom and the Rebellion. He was also finally beginning to realize and accept that there was nothing more he could have done.

Luke nods quietly to the doctor and leaves the room. He's back two hours later, asking the doctor to com him as soon as Bodhi wakes up.

It's almost a whole standard day later before Luke gets the message. He finds Bodhi sitting up, staring blankly at his hands as he fidgets with a bit of machinery he got somewhere, the sharp edges threatening to cut into his fingers. Bodhi doesn't notice Luke's presence until Luke places one of his hands over Bodhi's, stilling his hands before his fingers start bleeding. Luke silently sits on the edge of the bed, never letting go of Bodhi's hands. He is unsure what is drawing him to this man, but he can feel the Force flowing between them.

For a long time, they sit in silence, learning more about each other through words unspoken than they might have if they had said the words out loud. Finally, Luke breaks the silence.

"Maybe, when you get out of here, maybe we could... get a drink together or something?" His voice is hesitant but hopeful, and finally Bodhi raises his head, his gaze moving from their clasped hands to meet Luke's eyes. For the first time since Scarif, Bodhi smiles. It's not much, just a slight lift at one corner of his mouth, but Luke swears silently to himself that he will make Bodhi smile more.

"I'd like that," he replies quietly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chirrut and Baze make an appearance, Luke learns something about Bodhi, and no one is particularly happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm terrible at writing summaries, sorry
> 
> feedback extremely appreciated! 
> 
> again, this chapter was also written on my phone when I couldn't sleep.

It's another day and a half before the doctors release Bodhi from the infirmary. In that time Chirrut and Baze return to base, heading towards the infirmary as soon as they step off their shuttle. Bodhi looks up as they enter the room.

"Jedha?" he asks hesitantly, needing to know but dreading the answer. Base mutely shakes his head, while Chirrut speaks one word as he drops into a chair. "Gone."

Bodhi had been expecting that, had seen the destruction himself, had known that there was almost no chance that anything would be left, but the word hurts just the same. His chest feels tight and tears blur his vision but do not fall. The three men are silent for a long while, each quietly mourning the loss of their home.

Finally Chirrut speaks again, his hand coming up to grasp Baze's where it rests on his shoulder, and tells the most recent segment of their life's story.

He and Baze had left almost as soon as Chirrut was healed enough to travel, taking a small shuttle back to Jedha to see if there was anything at all left in the ruins of Jedha City. They had found nothing except dust and sand and rocks and rubble. The city had been utterly wiped out. The temple was gone, with nothing to even hint at where it had once stood. Chirrut especially had hoped to find kyber crystals that may have been overlooked by the Empire. He had found none - all the kyber crystals that once existed on Jedha had been either been removed by the Empire or buried so deep no one would be able to reach them, or possibly even destroyed by the Death Star's blast.

There is silence again once Chirrut stops speaking. Finally he rises from his chair, before resting his hand gently on Bodhi's shoulder.

"Rest, my friend. Rest and heal," he says softly, before taking Baze's hand in his and lacing their fingers together as they leave the room.

Left alone, Bodhi feels empty. Suddenly a thought comes to him and he laughs weakly. _If Jedha is destroyed, that means Bor Gullet is also destroyed. It can't hurt anyone else ever again. It can't hurt_ me _ever again._ He takes a small bit of comfort in that thought, while consciously pushing away the hazy, jumbled memories of his time as Saw Gerrera's prisoner.

Left alone in the infirmary, Bodhi is left with nothing to do but try his best to avoid the memories that constantly haunt him, waiting to pounce if he lets his guard down. He is extremely relieved when he is allowed to leave a few hours later.

He makes his way immediately to the Rogue One shuttle. Despite being a reminder of Scarif, it is the one place he feels safe. He's a _pilot._ Despite everything that has changed, that remains the same. _I'm the pilot. I'm the pilot._ The words repeat over and over in his head, almost a mantra. It shouldn't comfort him, he thinks. It shouldn't comfort him to think of himself as _the pilot_ , when he was the one who had been flying Imperial cargo ships, and then the one who had been flying the shuttle and left _them_ behind on Scarif, but it does. Flying is the only thing he knows how to do - the only thing left to him now, and he will not let that be tarnished by the Empire or by Scarif. Besides, neither of those things had been directly due to his ability - or inability - to pilot a ship. He can't help but think, however, that maybe, just maybe, if he'd flown faster on Scarif, if he'd taken less time to recover enough from the grenade blast to get to the cockpit, maybe he could have saved Jyn and Cassian.

Luke finds him late that evening. Bodhi is struggling to remove a metal panel to get to the wiring beneath - one edge of the panel had been nearly welded to the side of the cargo hold by the heat of the blast. Bodhi barely notices Luke's presence, fixated instead on his work, until Luke speaks quietly.

"Mon Mothma said it was a grenade that did all this damage." It's not quite a statement, it carries a hint of a question at the end, and Bodhi nods jerkily. Luke walks farther into the ship, his fingers running over the scars on the inside of the ship. Halfway to Bodhi his motion stills as he's struck by a thought, and he turns to look at the pilot.

"Where were you when the grenade went off?" he asks.

Bodhi doesn't say anything, just points silently at a spot a few meters away, to a battered terminal near the back left corner of the cargo hold.

"Kriff," Luke swears quietly. "How did you survive that?"

Bodhi raises one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "I don't know. I almost didn't. Chirrut says it's the will of the Force, but I'm not so sure."

"I'd heard that all three of you spent a while in the infirmary after Scarif, but I was busy with the attack on the Death Star and they never said how much you'd been injured..." Luke trails off, a question implicit in his words. Suddenly he catches himself. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry at all, you don't need to tell me about it," he says quickly.

"No, it's ok." Bodhi takes a deep breath and turns to lean against the blackened wall of the cargo hold. "I had a lot of burns, but the bacta completely healed those. The doctors say it was the shrapnel that was the worst, some had sliced across my face - he gestures to the jagged scar on his left cheek - and a large bit of metal imbedded itself in my side." He pauses, his hand unconsciously rubbing at the large, angry scar beneath his shirt. Luke takes a few steps towards him and slides his back down the wall, coming to sit a short distance away as Bodhi continues. "I passed out right after entering hyperspace. Baze managed to get us out of hyperspace and landed at Base One relatively quickly. The doctors said it was lucky Scarif wasn't farther away, and that Baze was able to figure out the controls enough to get us here - if had taken even an hour longer I would have died from bleeding out."

Luke's surprised at how matter-of-fact he is about it, then realizes that he must either be intentionally distancing himself from it, or not care enough about his own life. Luke hopes it's not the latter, but he has a sneaking suspicion that it is.

"Well, it's a good thing you didn't die," Luke says. "If you had, I wouldn't have met you!" It's a cheesy line and Luke knows it, but he needed to say _something_ to try and lighten the mood.

"I guess," Bodhi replies.

The conversation stalls out, and Bodhi takes a deep breath before turning back to continue struggling with the panel. Luke stands, unsure what to do. After standing awkwardly for a few moments, he turns and heads towards the boarding ramp.

"Hey," he calls back to Bodhi just before he reaches the ramp. "Make sure you get some sleep tonight, ok?"

Bodhi looks up at him, startled, as if he wasn't expecting anyone to care whether or not he takes care of himself.

"I will," he replies. Luke knows he's lying, but he's not sure he knows Bodhi well enough - yet - to press the issue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and I still have absolutely no idea where this is going, so...
> 
> also, I don't know when the next chapter will get posted, it all depends on how soon I figure out where this is all headed


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Bodhi talk some more, there is crying and a bit of fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> particular warning this chapter for suicidal ideation

Bodhi and Luke spend a lot of time together over the next few days, usually while one of them is working on fixing their ship. Often they talk, but sometimes they just exist in a comfortable silence.

It's not until Bodhi collapses from exhaustion again that Luke admits the pilot means something to him - something more than simple friendship and camaraderie. Luke finds Bodhi in the infirmary, again.

"Aren't you getting tired of this place?" are the first words out of his mouth, and he's rewarded with a faint smile on Bodhi's face, though he doesn't reply. Luke sighs, crossing the room to sit on the edge of Bodhi's bed, again stilling Bodhi's fidgeting hands with his own.

"Bodhi, you need to take better care of yourself," Luke says softly. "Look, I'll make you a deal. I'll convince the doctor to let you out of here quick - within an hour or two at most - if you swear to me that the next time you are tired and can't sleep, or won't let yourself sleep, you come to me right away." Bodhi looks up at him, faint curiosity in his eyes.

"Do we have a deal?" Luke asks. Bodhi pauses for a long moment, his eyes locked with Luke's, searching. Finally he nods. "Thank you," Luke says, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

True to his word, Luke convinces the doctor to let Bodhi leave before the end of the hour.

Luke isn't sure Bodhi will keep his side of the promise, given his stubbornness and his anxiety about relying on anyone other than himself, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise when Bodhi shows up at his door in the middle of the night, just over 27 hours after leaving the infirmary.

Opening his door to an exhausted Bodhi, barefoot and with a blanket wrapped around himself, Luke immediately drags him inside, guiding him to sit on the bed and settling next to him, their shoulders pressed together. Bodhi's silent for a long while and Luke lets him be, knowing Bodhi will talk in his own time, if he wants. Finally, Bodhi shifts, curling up against Luke, who wraps his arms around Bodhi. Bodhi leans his head against Luke's shoulder with a sigh and begins to speak.

"I've never told anyone everything that happened on Scarif..." he starts out, his voice quiet in the dark as he begins at the beginning, telling Luke everything. Eventually, he reaches the end, his voice tight. By now, tears are trickling down his face and Luke quietly wipes them away with his sleeve. There is silence for a long while, until Bodhi speaks again.

"You know what Cassian said to me before they left the shuttle? He said 'Keep the engine running, you're our only way out of here.' And I couldn't... I couldn't get them out of there. I even saw them, on the beach together, before I had to fly away. I should have saved them." He chokes on the words, and he's crying again. Luke says nothing - he doesn't know how to comfort someone, has no idea what to say, so he just holds Bodhi against him, offering silent support to the man he now admits he's fallen in love with.

"I should have saved them. I should have saved them." Bodhi mumbles over and over. Luke's arms tighten around him but he says nothing, just holds him silently, thumb gently rubbing Bodhi's shoulder as his words devolve into quiet sobs. Eventually he exhausts himself and Luke thinks he's finally asleep, until he hears a broken whisper. "I should have died too. I should have died instead. I shouldn't be alive... Maybe I should just kill myself and be done with it all."

Luke freezes at the words, though he supposes he should have expected them - he's had his own share of moments of survivors guilt and depression, but Bodhi seems to be worse.

" _No_." Luke's voice is low, quiet but tense.

" _No_ ," he repeats again, and he goes on, words finally coming to him. "You _should_ be alive. You deserve to be alive and don't you even _think_ about daring to argue with me about this. You did all you could, there was absolutely nothing more you could have done, you would only have gotten yourself killed and taken Baze and Chirrut with you and _no one_ would have made it back from Scarif. _Yes_ , people died, people including Cassian and Jyn. But they knew what they were getting themselves into and they chose to do it anyway because it was the right thing to do. It was not you fault they didn't make it out - it was a kriffing suicide mission Bodhi, the fact that even three of you escaped is a kriffing miracle and that only happened because of you. And Jyn and Cassian - at least they had each other in the end, neither had to die alone, which is a lot more than most in the Rebellion get.

"And so help me Force, if you kill yourself, I will drag you back from the dead just to yell at you for leaving me. Because I don't plan on letting you go that easily." Luke lifts Bodhi's chin until he can meet his gaze. "Promise me. Promise me, Bodhi, that you will live."

Bodhi stares at him for a long moment before nodding. "I promise," he says softly.

"Thank you," Luke replies, emotion making his voice rough. He carefully shifts them to one side so they can lay down instead of leaning against the wall and pulls the blanket up over them.

"Hey, Luke?" Bodhi's voice is hesitant.

"Yeah?"

"Please don't leave me?"

"I won't."

Silence.

"Hey, Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"... I think I might be in love with you. Is that ok?"

Luke smiles in the dark. "Yeah. Yeah that's definitely ok..." His voice trails off. 

"Hey, Bodhi?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm in love with you too."

This time it's Bodhi's turn to smile, and he wraps his arm over Luke's chest, snuggling into him more. That night, curled up against Luke, Bodhi sleeps without nightmares for the first time since Scarif.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I wrote this last night when my brain was being worse than normal and I was wishing I had someone to curl up against
> 
> what Luke says to Bodhi about "if you kill yourself I'll drag you back just so I can yell at you" is almost exactly what one of my friends told me a while ago, and it actually probably contributed to my still being alive today
> 
> aaaand I've decided this is the end of this fic, at least for now... I have zero ideas at the moment, but if anyone has suggestions please let me know and I'll see about adding more chapters or a sequel or something!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm terrible at writing two people in the process of forming a relationship so I'm just kinda waving my hands and going ~the Force~


End file.
